Police officer case back in local court

Despite losing a ruling before the NH Supreme Court last month, former Police Lieutenant Ed Corriea still wants his job back on the Alton Police Department.

In an appeal filed with the Belknap County Superior Court this week, Correia’s attorney, George Wattendorf of Dover, asks Judge Larry Smukler to rule that his client’s firing was “unjust, unreasonable and unlawful” according to state law related to the dismissal of a police officer – or because it violated state and federal and state constitutional issues.

Barring that, Wattendorf asks Smukler to give his client a new hearing based on the argument that the Board of Selectmen violated provisions of the Right-to-Know law during the three-day public disciplinary hearing that board voting to fire him in a 2-1 vote.

Wattendorf first asked Smukler to overturn his client’s dismissal back in 2007. At that time he argued that the selectmen had acted improperly in several areas – including the fact that the normally five-person group did not seek or appoint replacements for two board members who recused themselves from the deliberations. Smukler supported the argument and ordered the selectmen to reconsider Correia’s situation.

But Charles Bauer of the Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrel law firm of Concord, the attorney representing the town, appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. He said state statutes related to firing a police officer did not indicate a “full board” was needed to act on such issue.

The court agreed with that stance, overturning Smukler’s decision and handing the case back to the Superior Court for further action.

(Attorneys on both sides agreed the case was precedent-setting since the issue of the makeup of a Selectboard regarding the firing of a police officer had never been considered previously by the high court.)

This week Correia’s lawyer noted that he made several other legal arguments in his original appeal to the Superior Court and said they are still valid to overturn the selectmen’s decisions.

Correia was fired by the Selectboard in 2006 after the board ruled the officer had failed to report inappropriate behavior of his superior officers and had violated state statutes by not exhibiting “good behavior” towards residents.

Wattendorf also said fundamental issues of fairness were not adhered to at Correia’s hearing.

For instance, Town Counsel James Sessler, who was a co-investigator into charges of misconduct into the Police Department, also served as the hearings officer at Correia’s disciplinary hearing.

Wattendorf also said the state’s Right-to-Know law was violated during the hearing because it was held in the Town Hall meeting room, a space too small for some residents to attend.

In addition, the attorney said that during the “discovery” portion of the hearing – when the lawyers on both sides share information that may be used during the proceedings – he was not allowed to look at some documents because they contained information given by juveniles; however at the hearings attorney Melissa Guldbrandsen, who presented the town’s case, called the juveniles’ parents and other adults who testified to essentially the same issues the young people would have.

Finally Wattendorf said the board overreacted to the evidence when it voted to fire his client. “Ed Correia was never ‘written up’ in more than 20 years as a police officer. He’s a good police officer,” the attorney said at the December 2007 hearing. “He was unwarned (that he was acting inappropriately), not suspended, not talked to about it (his behavior by town leaders.)”

In the latest Motion for Reassessment and Request for Further Rulings of Law on (the Supreme Court’s Order) Wattendorf does not recount his objections but merely refers to them, and the fact that they were outlined in legal language in his original appeal but not addressed, either in Smukler’s original decision or in the Supreme Court’s ruling.